Life, Trials, and James 1:2-5

This is a big time in my life. I am on the edge of something big, a little something I would call 'The Rest of My Life'. For the majority of the time, you can wake up every morning and say, "It's another day! It's the first day of the rest of my life!" or whatever positive people think when they wake up. But there are moments in life that you can feel coming, the moments you know are going to change everything about you, everything about how you live and think everyday. And I am just under 2 months from a moment like that.

In 2 months, I will be moving to LA to start an internship. That flight or road trip (which ever we decide to do to get there) will be the beginning. This blog is called "Prequel to Life", and that life will begin the day I move away from Michigan. When I move to LA, it will begin real life. So far in my life, I've been in school. School is all I've known. I don't know what it truly is like to be out on my own and working to stay afloat. I don't know what life is like when it's unstructured. Do you know how scary that is? My entire mindset and views on life will have to change in order to adapt to that change.

I've been thinking a lot about life recently, what with it being a year since I began my summer journey on SMT, really missing home, trying to get a glimpse into what my future holds, and really getting the longing set in to get back to my beloved west coast. I've been thinking a lot about who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. Looking back, seeing the guy that existed a year or even two years ago, realizing how much of a wandering lost puppy I was back then. I thought I knew it all. This year has proven to me over and over that I know nothing of what life is or who God truly is. I can only see glimpses of each. But that's what life is: slowly learning and relearning what you think is reality. The world I was apart of at Ecola was the world I prayed that would be reality. I know now that it isn't in the least bit. The reality of life is that people are not smart at all, fail everyday in trying to reach God (or whatever they think He might be), and have no idea what they are doing. And I am included in that. I want so badly to believe that people are good, but they aren't. At the end of the day, we all fail, we all fall, and we all sin. I want to believe that I will eventually 'get it', that eventually I will stop being stupid, that I will stop being sinful. And the answer is yes and no. As long as I keep seeking the Lord with everything that I am, God will continue to work in my life. He will continue to sanctify me through trials and tribulations.

Even though I've complained a lot this year, I really have no right to. I could very well have gone to a school that would have over charged me and under educated me. Compass College really is a great place to learn about film. The teachers care and know how to teach the right things, and I will be getting a great internship through them and will have the skills to excel. Really, at the end of the day, the only thing I am lacking here is my best friends and a close church family. Sadly, those are the things I rely on in life the most. And God is teaching me to live without them, showing me how blessed I've been throughout my life.

James 1: 2-5 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

Part of the sanctification I have been going through this year is learning how to be joyful in all circumstances. I am a big believer in believing that every trial we go through, every circumstance we are put through is because God is building us up for a future trial and/or situation. The things I have been going through is just the beginning of a bigger plan in my life. I want more than anything to run this race of life with everything that I am. I don't want to live a "normal" life. I want to be used. If film school was just a tool that God used to grow me, and I'm not supposed to do film, so be it. But at the end of the day, I just want God's will to be done. I have been through enough this year, and watched enough people go through crazy things this year, to know that everything is happening for a reason, no matter how painful.

God has a plan. It's up to us to see that and accept it. And I choose to be apart of it in any way that God will allow me.